Taunton police captain retires after four-decade run

TAUNTON – Police Captain Michael Silvia says he can’t explain what motivated him to become a police officer.

“I don’t know,” Silvia said, when asked if it might have been a friend, relative or movie character who inspired him to pursue a career in law enforcement.

What is clear, however, is that once he started he stuck with it.

“I could have got full benefits if I retired 10 years ago,” the 64-year-old Silvia said, referring to the municipal retirement benchmark of working until age 55 while putting in 32 years of service.

Last Thursday was his final day on the job. By then Silvia had put in more than 41 years as a Taunton police officer.

His last promotion was September 2016 when Silvia replaced Capt. John Reardon, who retired after 36 years on the force, as Commander of Investigative Services, commonly referred to as the detective division.

The departmental rule, Silvia says, is for his successor to be of equal rank and have achieved a position of seniority.

That means Capt. David Warish, himself a veteran TPD officer, will step into Silvia’s shoes.

“I’m looking forward to it. It’s a good opportunity for me,” Warish said, adding that “I wish him the best. Not many people last 41 years.”

Lt. Paul Roderick, who handles media relations for the police department, took it upon himself to post on the department’s Facebook page Silvia’s professional resume — along with a message on behalf of the entire department, thanking him for his service and wishing him well.

“So far there are no negative (Facebook) comments,” an appreciative Silvia said, as he sat in the small room within the detective division that serves as the commander’s office.

Silvia said if there’s one thing he wants to get across as he heads out the door, it’s the dedication and effort being put forth by the detective unit.

“They’re a very hard-working group — there are a lot of investigations going on here,” he said.

The investigative services unit, Silvia said, consists of nine patrolmen, a sergeant and a lieutenant. Another two detectives, he said, work in the street crimes unit, which functions as a separate entity.

Computer technology, Silvia said, has in recent years been a useful crime-fighting tool for detectives, especially in terms of gathering information and tracking down witnesses and people of interest.

But with those advances has come an increase in incidents involving identity theft and other online crimes, which in recent years he says has added to the workload of the detective division.

Silvia says if there’s one common denominator when it comes to crime in Taunton and other cities it’s drugs.

One notable incident he recalls was in 1991 when, while off duty and driving his personal car, he spotted the notorious Gordon O’Brien drive past him on Staples Street.

“That’s (expletive) Gordon O’Brien driving by,” Silvia says he said to himself, before he grabbed his bag phone, forerunner to the smaller cell phone, called dispatch and turned around to follow.

Sgt. Matthew McCaffrey said he was the responding on-duty officer that day who took the hulking felon into custody.

McCaffrey, who like O’Brien stood well over six-feet tall, says he remembers O’Brien objecting to being handcuffed from behind, which led to a minor tussle.

O’Brien, who died of cancer in 2008 — after serving nearly seven years for trafficking and distribution of cocaine and heroin on Martha’s Vineyard — as a young man served more than 20 years in prison, for his conviction as one of four men who kidnapped and raped a woman before tossing her out of a moving car.

He also in 1990 was arrested, but not convicted, in connection to what police said was a botched plot to murder a Providence bookmaker and restaurant owner.

Silvia received a departmental commendation noting that “with full knowledge O’Brien is usually armed, and despite the fact you were off duty and in your personal vehicle, you initiated a pursuit resulting in the apprehension of a dangerous, wanted felon.”

Silvia, who was assigned to the detective division from 1985 to 1991, says he’s still bothered by the unsolved murder in 1986 of Charlene Garza — a 24-year-old Taunton woman whose body, he said, was partially covered by snow in the woods when discovered by a group of rabbit hunters.

Silvia says Garza, who had been stabbed to death, had been the girlfriend of Gordon O’Brien’s brother Marshall, who at the time was incarcerated and not considered a suspect.

“There were no witnesses,” Silvia said.

Marshall O’Brien later died while serving out subsequent prison term.

Silvia says the most frightening moment in his career happened in 1988 when state police confronted a man wanted for murder in Florida.

After graduating Taunton High School, Silvia, from 1979 to 1994, earned an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Massassoit Community College; a bachelor of arts in sociology from Southeastern Massachusetts University, now UMass Dartmouth; and a Master of Arts in criminal justice from Anna Maria College.

Before becoming a reserve police officer in 1977, he served 11 months as a city firefighter. He was hired as a full-time patrolman in 1978.

During his career, some of the specialized training Silvia received included investigation of serial homicides; fingerprint classification as taught by the FBI; forensic and interrogation techniques; and federal firearms law and identification of firearms as taught by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

He also, from 1985 until 1991, served as the department’s drug evidence officer, during which he was responsible for transporting confiscated drugs and narcotics to the state police lab.

During his career, Silvia said he served under four police chiefs and worked inside three different police-station locations.

He says the tough part now will be figuring out what to do in retirement.

Asked what he’ll miss most about being a police officer, he said “everything.”

“It gives me purpose,” the stout, mustachioed Silvia said.

“I know of things and how to do a lot of things, and it’s not going to do me any good anymore,” he said, somewhat wistfully.

One thing he said he’s not interested in is working a paid detail assignment, which is an option for a retired officer.

“I haven’t worked a detail since 1980.” And besides, he said with a smile, “It’s too cold.”